Category: Summer 2016

Greetings friends and colleagues and welcome to this year’s Departmental Newsletter. Substantial changes and events occurred in the department over the past year. Details of these will follow but include three new tenure-track faculty who joined us in August 2015, another to join us this August, two retirements, a new name for our undergraduate degrees, the 28th year of our annual conference, the awarding of over $25,000 in scholarships to students, a newly named K-State Alumni Fellow who is one of our own statistics alumni, and the annual alumni dinner at the JSMs. Continue reading “From the Department Head, Gary Gadbury (2016)”→

In January of 2016 the department held a half day retreat that focused on enhancing the undergraduate program, which is one priority in the department’s K-State 2025 objectives. The retreat was facilitated by an external human systems consultant who was on contract with K-State. Many ideas were discussed and objectives and tasks delineated. One item of discussion was the visibility of the department’s undergraduate program in statistics across the state. Continue reading “Renaming the BS/BA Degree”→

The annual Conference on Applied Statistics in Agriculture was held May 1 – 3, 2016 at the Hilton Garden Inn Conference Center in Manhattan. The first day was a one day workshop led by Dr. Ralph O’Brien from Case Western Reserve University. The workshop was titled, “Additions and Upgrades in our Everyday Statistical Toolbox” and it had over 50 attendees. Dr. O’Brien also gave the keynote address to over 100 attendees who attended the following two day conference. John Boyer served as the Program Chair for the conference and was assisted by Jo Ann Blackburn, Nick Bloedow, and graduate student assistants. The Department is grateful to John for his very capable leadership in seeing the conference through its 28th consecutive year.

Dennis Cook named K-State Alumni Fellow, George Milliken to receive the W.D. Dixon Award for Excellence in Statistical Consulting

Dennis Cook

Dr. R Dennis Cook was named one of K-States Alumni Fellows and was honored at a banquet hosted by the President and Provost of K-State and the Alumni Association. Dr. Cook is currently a full professor and director of the School of Statistics at the University of Minnesota. He earned a master’s degree in statistics from K-State in 1969 and a doctorate, also in statistics from K-State, in 1970. Continue reading “Awards”→

As is customary, graduates, faculty, former faculty and friends of K-State gather for a meal together at the Joint Statistics Meetings. Last year’s meeting in Seattle was no exception as nearly 40 of us gathered to eat, reminisce, meet folks we don’t overlap with at K-State, and share stories. The accompanying picture was taken at our restaurant.

Three new faculty joined the Statistics Department in Fall 2015; Gyuhyeong Goh, Mike Higgins and Cen Wu. Trevor Hefley will join the Statistics faculty in Fall 2016.

New Faculty Fall 2015

Gyuhyeong Goh

Gyuhyeong Goh received his PhD in Statistics in 2015 under the direction of Dipak Dey at University of Connecticut. His research has mainly focused on the development of statistical theory, methodology and application for high dimensional data from a Bayesian perspective. While at Connecticut he was also involved in several medical studies as a graduate research assistant at the University of Connecticut Heath Center (UCHC). Continue reading “Faculty Changes – New Additions and Retirements”→

Audrey Chang and Angel Zelazny were co-recipients of the Ronald and Rae Iman Scholarship

Audrey Chang

Audrey is originally from Webster, Texas and moved to Olathe, Kansas when she was six years old. She is co-majoring in Mathematics and Statistics and will be a junior this fall. She also received a College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Award and will be working with Wei-Wen Hsu on a zero-inflated Poisson model with applications to tornado monitoring. Continue reading “Scholarship Recipients”→

KSU grads Bilder, Samaranayake to be named ASA Fellows

The American Statistical Association has published the list of members who will be honored at this year’s JSM in Chicago by being named Fellows of the Association. The list includes two K-State Statistics Ph.D.’s – Chris Bilder and V.A. Samanarayake.

Chris Bilder

Chris Bilder earned his Ph.D. at K-State in 2000 under the direction of Dr. Tom Loughin. Chris spent three years on the faculty in the Department of Statistics at Oklahoma State University before moving to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2003. There he rose quickly to the rank of Professor. Continue reading “Alumni News – New Fellows”→

Welcome to the Alumni News column written by Dr. John Boyer, Professor Emeritus and former department head (2001-08). Dr. Boyer spends a good bit of his time looking after the family farm in Nebraska, where he and his wife Lora will reside in the near future. This column is his excuse and opportunity to communicate with graduates and friends of the department; a task he enjoys thoroughly. He hopes that all graduates hear about the column and email news pieces (new jobs, relocations, family developments, etc. that they would like to see included in the newsletter) to him at jboyer@ksu.edu. Don’t hesitate to email John any time, even to just say ‘howdy’. He’d love to hear from you, and he saves information in the emails he receives for the subsequent newsletter.

Xiuqin Bai (PhD ‘15) is excited to announce that she has accepted a tenure track position in the Department of Mathematics at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, WA (that’s about 15 miles from Spokane). She will begin teaching courses in statistics there this fall. Continue reading “Alumni News (2016)”→

Supporters of the Statistics Department provide crucial sources of funds to allow department leaders to respond to emerging opportunities, as well as ongoing needs that are not fully funded through state sources. Gifts this past year (July 1, 2015, to June 30, 2016) sustain excellence in this department. If you have any questions about this honor roll or you would like more information about other ways to support our department, please contact Emily Mahoney, KSU Foundation, 800-432-1578 or 785-532-7980, email: emilym@found.ksu.edu.